Picture the scene: it’s 11am on an average weekday. You haven’t even served the kids lunch yet. But, you think it’s time to make a start on dinner, just to be organised in time for the peak hour. Out of the wilderness, a small, yet defiant voice announces, ‘I’m not eating dinner tonight, Mum. Don’t want.’ Ok, so maybe some of you have kids who wait until they see what is actually for dinner before refusing it point blank, but you know the feeling, right? Wouldn’t you just love to be able to serve one meal at the dinner table that everyone will eat, and know that your children are well-nourished? Today I’m talking about things we can do to make that goal more likely to happen.
1) Identify what the problem is.
Is your child wanting to run around the house while everyone else sits nicely at the dinner table? Are they refusing certain foods but will gladly eat others? Are they deciding they don’t like it before they’ve even looked at it? Before being too quick to write your child off as being a picky eater, try to ascertain whether the behaviour is just a smaller problem than just a child being difficult during a whole meal. If you can nail down exactly what behaviour you’d like to see improve, you’ll have a better chance of working out a plan of action.
Wouldn’t it be great if every dinner time was a birthday party with chocolate cake? Then I’m sure there’d be no arguements!
2) Work out what aspects of meal times your child likes, or does well.
My son is not a big fan of meat. It’s only in the last year that he’s been eating it a little more willingly. But, he will eat just about any type of vegetable, fruit, dairy food, or grains. Praise your child for the things they do well. Don’t ‘horriblise’ their behaviour as a whole. When I’m not thinking about it, it’s so easy for me to slip up and say, ‘my son is a picky eater’. When I’m forced to think about it, the reality is that he doesn’t like meat very much. This can help make the task ahead less overwhelming.
3) Break down into small tasks, what you would like to see improve at the dinner table.
My three year old son had several things which we needed to work on. One, was trying to run around the house whilst everyone else sat down and ate. We made it a goal initially to simply get him to commit to sitting at the table. We didn’t worry about any other details until we felt he had improved on this step first. We discovered that he loved the idea of having a blunt butter knife just like his big sister to cut up his food. So, we started to give him one with meals, then bang! He was obsessed with cutting his food, and therefore stayed at the table. He still didn’t eat much, but baby steps! We also found that putting him on Fish Oil capsules helped him to focus and sit still for longer periods.
4) Incorporate foods they like into meals
This is an obvious, yet important one. No, a child can’t be expected to eat the exact same food for dinner, every night. But, be willing to bend on certain things. If you know they will eat raw carrots but no other yellow vegetables, it’s worth allowing them to have that most nights. They’re getting their nutrients from that food group, and that’s what counts.
If a child sees a familiar food on their plate, it helps them to deal with the other foods on their plate that may not be so familiar.
5) Encourage your child to try new foods. Also, to try foods more than once.
We have a rule in our house, once our kids are old enough to understand it: you can’t say you don’t like something if you’ve never tried it. Therefore, if you’ve had a taste, then you can say how horrible it is. Try this one, and be surprised just how often your child will end up loving something they didn’t like the look of.
6)Get your children involved in the process of preparing dinner.
This will depend on the age of your children, of course. But, if children have played a part in getting dinner ready, then they will feel more invested in the whole experience. Can your child wash the vegetables, set the table, arrange some salad vegetables on everyone’s plate? What could your child do to help that they would enjoy?
7) Give lots of positive feedback.
If Mr 3 is complaining to us about his dinner, we try not to turn the whole mealtime into a spotlight on him not liking dinner!
‘Ooh look, Miss 9, you are sitting very nicely over there eating lots of meat, that’s fantastic!’
‘Good girl, Miss 1, you really love this dinner, don’t you? I love how you will try any food.’
Mr 3 has learnt over a period of time, that he gets a lot more attention for doing the right thing at the dinner table, than for complaining or running away from the table. If a child overcomes one of their more challenging actions, it’s important to really make a fuss and let them know how proud of them you are.
‘Oh, Mr 3, you’ve stayed at the table the whole time! I’m so happy that you’re doing the right thing!’
Find out if there is something else causing challenging behaviour. Sometimes a child has a perfectly good reason for having a dinner time struggle. Especially if the behaviour is not usual for them. Is there a chance your child is coming down with a cold or a stomach bug?
Is your child too tired to sit happily at the table and eat? Could you bring dinner time forward by a half hour, or even an hour? Sometimes, if a child is too tired, it’s simply asking too much to expect them to sit still and not be irritable.
Is your child teething? We had this issue tonight with our 18 month old daughter. She is cross-cutting, which I’m told is more painful than regular teething, and going by her demeanour, it seems about right! She is a child who would normally eat anything, try anything, heck, she’s even been known to eat her own poo. Ewwwww…. But today, she was not having a bar of her breakfast, lunch or dinner.
Anyway, we’ve always found with a teething child, that it helps a lot to go back to smooth foods such as custards, yoghurts, and things like that. I actually raced to the nearby petrol station to pick up some tinned baby food tonight, just so that I knew she would eat something.
In a nutshell, be willing to make allowances if you think it’s needed.
The bottom line is, there is no ‘magic pill’ approach to having more relaxed mealtimes. Have patience, try to keep it relaxed, happy and fun. Tackle the problems in baby steps and give it lots of time.
Luckily, my 2-year old son loves to eat! We just give him a few choices and he'll easily choose one (if not two)!
My 10-month old daughter is another story since she's pretty picky. We constantly try new foods with her so she can experiment.
Hi Gabe, thanks for stopping by. It's great when they love to eat, isn't it? Hopefully your ten month old will take your son's lead
This is a great post! Thank you for all the good ideas! I love this blog, I've been working my way through your back posts. Fantastic.
Hi, Inner Pickle!
I am glad to hear it! You've got loads of awesome recipes at your site, I don't know how you do it! I visit often.
this post fits well with an experience we had last night where my sone found every excuse in the book not to eat – not hungry (then asked for a pear), tired, dirty, need to pee, too hot, too cold. We always ask him to at least try something before he knocks it but no can do usually. Finally I was so irritated we put him in the time out – probably not the best thing to have done in retrospect. But I tend to take it as a personal afront when he won’t eat especially when I cooked it and I know it’s something he has eaten before. He won’t touch veggies unless it’s a carrot, green is definitely not edible. We don’t want to change our eating habits 100% just to suit him so we try to put at least one thing on the plate that he likes but that doesn’t always work and it seems to be getting more and more difficult. He is 3 1/2 yrs old. Hope things start looking up.
Oh, Regina, I can so relate, truly:) My son is the same age as yours and we have our good days, and our dreadful days! I keep telling myself it’s a phase and not to give up, LOL